Endoscopic surgery is widely used because it is much less traumatic than conventional open surgery. With endoscopic surgery, an incision is made in the patient's body and a port is passed through the incision. Various types of endoscopic instruments are passed through the port and appropriate procedures are carried out.
One type of endoscopic instrument is forceps having tips specially configured to grasp objects and cut tissue. Conventional forceps typically use scissors-type of thumb and finger holes offset to one side of the axis in a pistol grip-type of arrangement. Such forceps, although well designed for cutting and simple grasping tasks, are not particularly suited for certain tasks, such as manipulating a needle during endoscopic procedures; conventional forceps require the user to reposition the entire instrument to adjust the rotary orientation of the tip.